


The external Monologue of Nigel Eberhard Winterbourn

by OlderShouldKnowBetter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark Comedy, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 06:31:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14443404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OlderShouldKnowBetter/pseuds/OlderShouldKnowBetter
Summary: The TIMOASK universe is populated by wonderful characters: Annett Sinclaire Kluge, Jamie Nott, even Albus Potter amongst many others.And then there is Nigel Winterbourn.A forgotten character from a forgotten family, hardly of any consequence to any one else except ...... he dreams of one day rising up and Destroying Them ALL!!!!! (as long as he doesn't get caught)Set in pointless_proclimation's TIMOASK Universe.Done for her 'Shape of Stories' challenge.





	The external Monologue of Nigel Eberhard Winterbourn

Chapter 1: The Noble and Antient House of Winterbourn

 

Nigel Winterbourn was born into an ancient and prestigious wizard family on a suspiciously early day in April, in the year of 2006. 

The prestigious nature of the family was the subject of debate, however, and the wizard community was split into two camps over the matter. 

Well, three camps, if you included the wizarding population of Great Britain and Ireland who had absolutely no idea that the family even existed. 

Once you excluded that large percentage, the few percent who were left were split into two camps: those inside the family who believed it to be prestigious; and everyone else outside the family who knew it wasn’t.

The matter of their prestige could be called into doubt, but there was no question that the family was ancient. The origins of the family were lost to antiquity but one of the most prominent early members would have to be Wodderwik Winterbourn, one of the five founders of Hogwarts. His Christian name was a strange one, as far as it is known it has never been used before or since. Except for his unfortunate son - Wodderwick Jr - but that was more a case of obstinacy than any real pride in the name. It is a matter of conjecture, that his parents - who were both known to have pronounced speech defects - were actually intending on naming him Roderick.

He grew up close to Godric Gryffindor and hung around him all their young lives, so much so that when Godric got together with the other founders he somehow tagged along. He was involved with some of the early planning for the school. It is apparently beyond all doubt that he was responsible for the choice of school uniform. How much ‘choice’ a white shirt and grey trousers/skirts required is neither here nor there; his was the decision to make it so, and he made it. Unfortunately: an improper advance made towards Rowena Ravenclaw; an inappropriate comment about Salazar Slytherin’s nose; and playing with Godric Gryffindor’s sword when he thought he wasn’t watching - caused a falling out and Wodderwik Winterbourn was exiled from the founders. Helga Hufflepuff, who was an astute judge of character, had never liked him in the first place.

So Hogwarts was denied it’s fifth house, that of Winterbourn. What trait he would have selected for his house has, as far as we know, never ever been the subject of debate. We do know what his colours and mascot would have been however. If he used those on his family crest as the other founders did, then the House of Winterbourn’s colours would have been brown and puce, and their animal mascot would have been the Warthog.

Undoubtedly, the connection with the founders was the highest the family ever rose in the eyes of the world, but there were a few notable Winterbourns scattered throughout the course of wizard history.

Ignotious Winterbourn (1657 – 1702) has the particular distinction of being the only wizard to be on the wrong side of the only goblin uprising that occurred in the latter half of the seventeenth century. It wasn’t even a rebellion as such - even the goblin hierarchy of the time condemned it and eventually worked with the wizard community to suppress it. It was not started for political reasons, nor was it due to unfair working conditions; no, it was found later to be a bunch of loutish and uncouth goblin thugs, who simply rioted for the fun of it. They had managed, somehow, to get on Ignotious’ good side and procure money for alcohol and weapons from him, turning what would have been only a minor incident into one which threatened the whole of the society at the time. It does have the distinction in that, since both the wizarding and goblin communities had to work together to suppress the hooligans, it significantly improved the relationship between the two communities for the next fifty years.

The family fortunes took a distinct hit when Fetherbrins Winterbourn (1812 – 1878) took it upon himself to modernise the ancestral home. The Winterbourns lived in a modest manor at a close remove from Godric’s Hollow until Fetherbrins decided to modernise it in 1847. A significant part of the family’s fortunes went into the remodelling, but the original builder was so incompetent that he caused extensive damage in beginning the renovations. He was dismissed and another more reputable, and expensive, builder was brought in to repair the ‘renovations’ and at twice the initial cost, the Winterbourn Manor was finally restored to exactly the same condition as it had been before the whole unfortunate affair began.

The family had a permanent box at the home stadium of the Wimbourne Wasps. It is a little known fact that the team was originally the Winterbourn Warthogs. After only one game as such, the team voted unanimously to move to the town of Wimbourne (away from the Winterbourns) and drop the Warthog permanently as their mascot. They somehow convinced the head of the Winterbourn family at the time, Wainscott Winterbourn – who was very easy-going and gullible - that this was not intended to be seen as any slight upon the family and that they would still like to keep receiving the family’s money, thank you very much. Wainscott agreed and was rewarded with a permanent box at their home stadium, as long as the family use it at least once a year. The tradition has been maintained consistently by the family ever since. Nigel’s father usually catches the bus to the stadium, but gets off the stop before and walks the rest of the way because he is ashamed by the fact that he cannot apparate there. 

That brings us to the main thing the family was famous (or, notorious, in certain circles, ie the Purebloods) for: the production of Squibs. So much so that in all their long history, the Winterbourn's had not only produced more squibs than the other pureblood families, they had produced more than all the other pureblood families combined. 

It all started with the son of Wodderwik. The family's status had taken a sizable hit after the expulsion from the founders. Wodderwik himself was the sort who didn't realise the extent of his ignominy, he just blustered and blundered his way through life and the event had unfortunately not made him any the wiser. As such he kept making one social faux pas after another. The real victim was his son, as Wodderwick was oblivious of his wrong doing till the day he died. His son was all the more keenly aware of the shame of it, because the cause of his shame was not of his own origin. 

He consequently found it difficult to find a wife from amongst the pureblood circles, but from their ranks he was determined to seek marriage. Far be it for him to reduce the standards of the family lower than what his father had already done, and by the standards of the time it was an offence that one could almost never come back from. He eventually found a younger daughter of the Black family whom they had deliberately kept out of society because of her 'unfortunateness'; that is, she was a squib. He married her to the mutual satisfaction of both parties; the Black's had a daughter comfortably settled and Wodderwik junior had himself a pureblood wife. 

And thus did the genetic decline of the Winterbourn family begin. There is something that can be said about genetic theory: and that is, that it works - genes really are how traits are passed on from parent to child. Now it is true that magical ability can sometimes skip a generation and come back even stronger in the third generation; it was undoubtedly the reasoning that Wodderwik Jnr was hoping for in his selection of Crocus Black. And yes, there are more forces at play in what will determine if someone has enough magical ability to become a witch or wizard than mere genetics; deep mystical forces that are the intense study of a sub-department within the Department of Mysteries. But all of that notwithstanding, genes play a significant part in magical heritage, whether by direct inheritance from the parents or the activation of a long dormant gene. 

So when you have squibs and keep marrying squibs it will do something to your genetic make up. And keep marrying squibs they did; the pureblood families thought that by doing so they were doing right by their 'unfortunate' relations. They removed those untouchables from polite society and in return they received a good home with a respectable family – barely respectable, but at least technically pureblood.

Nigel, for instance, was the first to have enough magical talent to be allowed to go to Hogwarts for three generations. The previous Winterbourn who’d had enough magical talent to be had been Wining Winterbourn, a thorn in the side of Cantankerous Nott. 

Wining came into the world at a time where it was fashionable to name children after virtues and attributes. His father was already of advanced years when Wining was born and he was fairly poorly educated even by the low standards of the time. He had only ever heard the word wining in the context of 'wining and dining' and thought he was setting his son up with a fine name that would serve him well in the upper echelons of society. He didn't know that the word had a far more common homophone. Whether the naming of the lad was prophetic in nature, or if it was that he grew into the name; whichever it was, it certainly became a case of Wining by name, whining by nature.

One of the persons to feel the brunt of Wining's winning personality was Cantankerous Nott. Up until his run in with Wining, he had described his work on the genealogy of the pureblood families of Great Britain and Ireland as his crowning achievement, and his work on the sacred twenty-eight as his 'legacy that would stand the test of time.' The thing is, it should have been twenty-nine; the Winterbourns were technically purebloods after all. When you think of pureblood wizards as 'Nature's Nobility' - as Cantankerous surely did - then the presence of the Winterbourns didn't really fit the mould. Due to not thinking they were magical enough, and from a personal dislike of Wining truth to be told, the Winterbourn's name had mysteriously 'fallen' off the list. The subsequent pestering that he received at the hands of Wining caused him to not only strike his name from his life's work, but to disavow any association with it in an attempt to not have to deal with the bothersome Wining anymore. 

But Wining was correct, the family was pureblood, in the true sense that they had never married half-bloods nor Muggleborn nor, Merlin forbid, Muggles. His father had impressed upon the young Nigel the pride he should feel at being a Winterbourn and a pureblood. "We may not be able to do magic," he was fond of saying, "But that don't make us any less of a pureblood, and not even the great Dumbledore hisself could say that."

There were many wands in the Winterbourn household: as they tended not to be used much, they tended to last. It had become a tradition within the family to try out the old wands on the children's birthdays from five onwards - they'd never been in trouble from the Ministry for this for one simple reason. The family had started the tradition way after 1875, when the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery had been passed and performing under-aged magic had been made a crime; since then, not one of the family had ever been successful. When sparks had come from the end of the wand Nigel was holding, his father had cried for fully two hours. On every birthday since, he would shoot out sparks and his father would wipe the tears from his eyes. 

Just before he left for Hogwarts, his younger and only sister turned five and it was her turn to have her go at the family tradition. The look of hope and expectation on their father’s face, was only beaten by the look of crushing disappointment upon his face moments later. Whatever you said about Nigel, and most of it wasn't complimentary, he genuinely loved his sister. He would have given anything to have prevented the hurt that his sister experienced then. He loved her so much, that he actually would have traded his magical talent for her lack of it, and all the attendant approval from his father that it entailed, to spare her the pain of their father’s disapproval. 

So in his eleventh year, Nigel came to Hogwarts with a sense that the world owed him a favour, impressed with himself, and even more wrong-headedly, impressed with his pureblood, prestigious family.


End file.
